Another one bites the dust

I don't know what is up with KitchenAid mixers. Or maybe what is up with me. Anyway, I killed another mixer this week. This one is 1 1/2 years old.

When Mark and I got married, we took back every piece of china and silver to ZCMI and purchased a KitchenAid mixer. This was 17 years ago, and there was pretty much just one model to choose from, and one color--white. I loved that thing. I used it nearly every day for 10 years. By that time, we had 5 kids, and KitchenAid had come out with a 6-quart bowl--very handy for double batches of cookie dough. So I decided the time had come to upgrade, and I handed my old mixer off to a friend.

That 2nd mixer lasted just over a year before some gears stripped out. I took it to a repair shop, and $100 later, had a functional mixer again. About 6 months went by, and something else died in the mixer. I tried to find the part online to fix it, but it wasn't available.

The 3rd mixer lasted for a few years--until it took its last breath during a batch of sugar cookie dough almost 2 years ago. That's when I got the 4th mixer. Perhaps I would have been better off to accept the damaged box Amazon first sent me rather than insisting on a new one. I'll never know. All I know is that I should have taken the $30 extended warranty offer I got in the mail a few months before the warranty ran out.

It appears that a compression fitting on this last mixer has gone bad. The part where you attach the paddle/whisk/hook just completely fell off the mixer--not just the tiny shaft, but the big, round metal part that fits up inside the mixer. That's where the compression fitting is. The part that is acutally attached to the main mixer body has stripped out and can no longer hold onto the piece from the shaft assembly.

Merry Christmas.

To top things off, as I was rolling out the gingerbread cookie dough from the mixer's last stand, my rolling pin started to make a strange crunchy noise. This was the rolling pin I had purchased 19 1/2 years ago when I went away to BYU. I heard the noise and thought, "Man, that sounds like the ball bearings are giving out." Next thing I knew, a bunch of little metal balls came pouring out one end of the rolling pin. I finished my cookies and dumped my rolling pin in the trash.

I took a trip with Zacky to Williams-Sonoma today to get a new rolling pin and to LOOK at their mixers. I have never had a rolling pin without handles, but I bought one today, and I think it is going to make me very happy.

Now I just need to figure out a new mixer. Do I go for the 5th KitchenAid and splurge $30 for the extended warranty? KitchenAids are so pretty, and they don't jump around on the counter like a Bosch. Also, I make WAAAAAAAAAAY more cookie dough than bread, and I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the Bosch cookie dough. But it has been a loooooong time since I have used a Bosch, and 800 watts is nothing to shake a stick at.

Of course, what I would really like to buy is this:The Hobart Commercial countertop model. Only $2035.11. How many KitchenAid mixers could I go through before this was paid for?